Nevada County participants in the 2011 Tech Trek program  were fortunate to attend the inaugural session for Tech Trek at UC Davis.

While patterned after the Stanford sessions, there will be some differences which will include exciting new activities for the girls.  Nevada County Branch member, Martha Rees, participated in the inaugural seesion of Teck Trek at UC Davis as a dorm mother. Below  are a sampling of her comments.

        "It was truly a wonderful experience for me ... met some great ladies (young and not so young) and the girls touched my heart and life in ways that I could

never   have imagined. I didn't have any of our girls in my dorm group ... but did get to see them on and off throughout the week. From my observations, they seemed they  were having a good time and rising to a variety of challenges. Sarah and I were among the lucky ones who were able to take the Veterinary Hospital tour. We even viewed a portion of a TPLO surgery on a dog among other nifty things .... Alex was among those who got to go to the Bohart Museum (a bug/entomology museum), which I understand was fascinating and enlightening -- did you know bugs played a role in forensics as well as medicine, etc.?

         Everyone went on the Grace Foundation (horse rescue) center as well as the Aerospace Museum of CA --- girls who said they were afraid of horses      

ended up petting, brushing, and walking horses and they all got a chance to fly via flight simulators with the help of instructors. All of them were pilots;

some  were retired commercial and others military. We also saw a video titled Mission to Mars 2034 --- the girls figured they be 36-37 years old then, and one of the girls in my group said, "I want to be the first woman on Mars ... no, I want to be the first PERSON on Mars" -- you've got to love that spirit. The Mondavi Center tour was outstanding ... touched on architecture and acoustics/sound and lighting engineering.

          Afternoon/evening activities ran the gamut from bats and raptors to building motors to team building activities such as tower building (teams of 5 girls were given 11 pieces of paper and about 1 yard's length of tape and their assignment was to build the tallest tower they could that would stand for at least 10 seconds ... and w/out talking out loud to each other!) Another activity one evening had the girls figuring out what Barbie's measurements would be if she were real ... using mathematical proportions the girls came up with her dimensions if she were 5'6" and then used a tape measure to visual what her waist/bust/hips would be ... the conclusion led to discussions of body image, what the girls liked about themselves, how everyone is self conscious about various aspects of themselves, etc. There were many others ... but you get the idea.

         We did LOTS and LOTS of walking within fairly tight time frames since our dorm, running between our designated dining common and our classrooms ... not to mention the on-campus field trips ... were at opposites sides of the campus. It gave the girls a true college experience ... along with a few blisters and sore legs:-) I believe the girls all left camp feeling strong, more confident and with the belief that they really could do anything they put their minds to doing. The friendships forged, mutual respect and support I observed for each other were terrific.